2013-12-13

"So what’s the bottom line? I didn’t think I would like MO for more than a day. It’s awkward to play and painfully unforgiving of mistakes. But it still beckons to me. It reminds me a lot of a 3D version of UO. There are tons of crafting and gathering possibilities. You can actually make gear that is better than loot drops (because so far, there are no loot drops except for money – none that I’ve seen, at least). You can just run in any direction and explore off the beaten path. Because pretty much anywhere outside of town is off the beaten path.

On the negative side, the graphics are not that great, especially for a title released in 2010. It’s definitely not a AAA-quality game. It’s got some bugs. The pet interface window routinely goes nuts. It’s not as bad of an interface as AC or EQ1, but it’s still heavily dependent on drag-and-drop to do things. The server seems to reboot every morning.

The big question is whether this game is worth subscribing to. On the one hand, I’d like to send the developers some money to reward them for doing something innovative (compared to modern MMOs, at least). On the other hand, I don’t particularly want to pay to get killed over and over again. I get the feeling it would be a long time before I could actually start fighting back or even running away. Everyone else has had a two-year head start, after all.

But I think it’s well worth checking out the free version.

P.S. Dear Mortal Online Developers: You cannot imagine how annoying it is to process screenshots in *BMP* format."